In the system having a communication device such as home area network (HAN) equipment and a communication control device such as a home energy management system (HAMS) server, a technique for performing initialization of the communication control device has been known. For example, authentication information (credentials) including a one-time password (OTP) of the communication device and a common key are two-dimensionally encoded, and the prepared two-dimensional code is read by an introducer such as a mobile phone. Then, the introducer notifies a transfer agent on the Internet of the OTP, and sets the common key to the communication control device. Furthermore, the transfer agent notifies the communication device of the ID of the communication control device. These enable a user to save trouble of manually inputting the credentials to the communication control device.
When setting a communication control device using a transfer agent on the Internet, a communication device needs to connect to the Internet. When the communication control device is a gateway to the Internet such as a home gateway, the communication device cannot connect to the Internet unless the connection authentication with the communication control device is successful. When the communication device cannot connect to the Internet, the system of the above-described known technique does not operate. Furthermore, when the transfer agent is stolen, the common key of the communication device leaks out, thereby allowing the communication device of the third party to connect to a target network. Therefore, the safety of the system is impaired.